Scott Anrim of Lake Wylie, SC, is an experienced conifer broomer with an eagle eye and a 45-foot pole pruner. His best find so far has been Pinus pungens ‘Doughton Park,’ the first cultivar of table mountain pine and a highly sought-after plant in the conifer world. Bruce Appeldoorn, a nurseryman from Bostic, NC, has over 40 years of experience propagating conifers. His skill at grafting witches’ brooms pairs perfectly with Scott’s ability to locate them. For the past six years, they’ve collaborated in the search for new and compact horticultural cultivars of southeastern conifers.
Together, along with a few other broomers, they focus on the majority of southern pines: shortleaf, table mountain, Virginia, loblolly, pitch, longleaf, and sand pine. To date, they have sampled 63 wild brooms from native pines across North and South Carolina and have successfully grafted 29 of these—roughly 50%. Virginia pine yields the highest success rate: 65% of P. virginiana brooms found in the wild have been successfully grafted.
Grafting Witches Brooms from Pines
| Species | # Success / # Brooms | % Success | % of Total Brooms |
| P. clausa | 2/5 | 40% | 7% |
| P. echinata | 3/6 | 50% | 10% |
| P. palustris | 0/8 | 0% | 13% |
| P. pungens | 2/5 | 40% | 8% |
| P. rigida | 1/1 | 100% | 1% |
| P. strobus | 3/3 | 100% | 5% |
| P. taeda | 2/10 | 20% | 16% |
| P. virginiana | 17/26 | 65% | 41% |
Each broom is trialed with 15 grafts, using five grafts each on three different understock species. For many brooms, only a handful of grafts succeed from the initial trials, and sometimes just a single graft proves viable. Pinus taeda and Pinus echinata are particularly stubborn, often resulting in disappointingly low grafting percentages.
However, their work has shown that when grafts of P. virginiana brooms are grown for an additional two years, they produce juvenile scion wood that grafts at much higher success rates (60–80%).
Grafted Virginia Pine Brooms
| Cultivar | % Success 1st Generation | % Success 2nd Generation |
| Bo-Broom | 30% | 60% |
| Golden Valley | 20% | 60% |
| Green Lantern | 11% | 85% |
| Henry Knob | 50-100% | 100% |
| High Five | 10% | 85% |
| Scout Camp | 15% | 60-80% |
Years of trialing have helped determine the most compatible understock species for each scion, though results can vary even among brooms of the same species. Ideally, understock native to wide areas of the South would be used. Currently, P. echinata is the preferred understock, with P. virginiana also performing well for some brooms. Additional trials have included P. thunbergii, P. sylvestris, P. taeda, and P. nigra—whichever produces viable grafts is considered a success in nursery trials.
Once a successful clone is secured, the plant is grown on to produce the juvenile scion wood needed for further propagation. It typically takes two to three years for a young graft to yield its first crop of scion cuttings. This delay means nearly five years can pass before a meaningful crop is available. Bulking up numbers quickly remains a challenge for southern pines; it’s particularly frustrating to graft a unique specimen only to lose it one or two years into the growing cycle—before it can be reproduced.
VARIABLE FACTORS IN THE SELECTION OF SCION WOOD FROM WITCHES BROOMS
Factors involving ripeness of scion:
- Date of collection (was the parent plant dormant?)
- Geographic location (climate)
- Elevation above sea level
- Age (juvenility)
- Seasonal variables (undefined factors, weather events)
Factors involving quality of scion wood:
- Physical qualities (health, color, bud count)
- Unusual traits (variegation, twisted growth, contorted, tightness of broom)
- Cones, seeds
Factors involving physical collection of scion wood:
- Height of broom on parent tree (cannot collect wood above 45′ from ground)
- Position of broom on tree — N, S, E, W
- Freshness of collected wood (storage/shipping and handling)
- Scion wood may not be accessible during winter